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5 Golf Hacks to Improve Your Golfing Life

There are plenty of golf hacks out there, and I’m not just talking about your playing partners.

Hacks are the product of lateral thinking for common problems that can save you money or time. With the numerous expenses associated with golfing, we could all use a few tricks that will save us a few bucks or relieve us from unitaskers taking up space in our golf bags and closets.

Here are some simple ideas for repurposing household items for your golf game:

Push Cart Wheel Cover

If you use a push cart, you’re probably tired of all the grass and dirt in the trunk of your car. Brushing off all the grass seems to take hours, and if you’re in a hurry to get home after your round then forget about it.

After a couple weeks with my Clicgear 3.5+, I ordered the wheel cover online. The design was simple but flawed. The elastic, which was stitched to the cover, had to be stretched over and over, and the design of the cover required the cart to balance on the front wheel to keep the grass contained (spoiler: it didn’t).

When the stitching finally gave out after a few weeks, I happened to spot an old IKEA bag sitting in my storage closet. If you know anything about these bags, they are about 19 gallons and made from tarp-like material with thick stitching. As luck would have it, it’s the perfect size for my push cart!

If you don’t have an IKEA near you or know anyone willing to part with their old bag, you can order one online (now available in different colors other than bright blue). At about $2, you couldn’t find a better cart bag if you tried making it yourself. Now you have a clean trunk and a carry bag!

Alignment Rods

As the snow finally melts, snag those markers from the end of your driveway and pop them into your golf bag!

Alignment rods are incredibly helpful tools but inexplicably expensive. Anything special about the names or markings on these rods can be replicated with a Sharpie and a half-priced, driveway marker from your local hardware store. Save yourself a few bucks and you won’t feel so guilty if it gets misplaced or broken during drills gone awry.

Personals Bag

There are plenty of things rattling around in your golf bag, so it’s best to keep your personal items safe and clean by sticking them in one spot. From my experience, the personal pockets in most golf bags are too small.

One solution is to provide your own personals bag. For a couple years now I’ve used an “adult beverage” bag. These little cloth bags have a drawstring and, after you’ve responsibly emptied the bottle, serve little purpose other than taking up drawer space.

And if you’re not of age or don’t partake, then maybe you have an old sock without a partner lying around. After a hole in my golf sock became too much of a nuisance, I reached out to the fine folks at Kentwool to see if they had any suggestions for my lone “woolf”. Lauren, the Director of Digital Marketing and Sales, got back to me with plenty of ideas and gratitude for the effort to keep their high-quality wool out of landfills.

Besides having an emergency replacement in your bag, you can use your old socks as club headcovers, sunglasses cases, pocket golf ball cleaners, or cell phone protectors. You’re only limited by your imagination–just make sure to wash them first.

Impact Tape

This one you’ve probably heard before. Impact tape can be a great tool to gauge your clubface-to-ball contact. And although the tape isn’t that expensive, it can be a pain to carry around spools of different tape for different clubs. Using Dr. Scholl’s spray powder on the clubface is by far the best option.

Along with being universal for all clubs in your bag from putter to driver, the spray is also a better alternative because it doesn’t change the spin rate like tape does. With tape there is a physical barrier between ball and club, so the apparent result is not the actual.

Another alternative is to use the dry erase marker method popularized by Adam Young. All you need is a dry-erase marker and the patience to mark a spot on each ball. This method is great for the same reason as the spray. It just takes a little more effort per shot. Since I’m lazy about some things and always eager to practice, I prefer to spray and hit away.

Golf Umbrella

Umbrellas on the golf course are usually a sign of unfortunate weather. For me, the umbrella gets its most use in the scorching summer sun.

Texas has its golf season advantages, but summer is not one of them. Courses are crowded in the morning and empty in the afternoon as temperatures crest 100 with limited shade. If you’re walking, then bust out your rainy day friend. Not only will you reduce your sun exposure during peak hours, but you’ll also be the envy of other golfers with your mobile cabana.

My foursome didn’t hold back from making fun the first time. Nine holes later they were sneaking shade from my rig while I was teeing off. If you don’t live in a rainy climate, have you really gotten your money’s worth out of that umbrella? Put it to work fighting the sun!

If you have any other hacks that you use regularly, let me hear them! I’m always looking for some new tricks to throw in the bag.

About John Brende

John is an amateur golfer and creator of the Subpar Golf Blog. He’s an avid experimenter and data tracker determined to take his subpar game all the way to a qualifying tournament for the 2020 U.S. Open. He currently resides in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

About the Author

Jon Sherman is the owner of Practical Golf, a website dedicated to being an honest resource for the everyday golfer who is looking to enjoy the game more, as well as improve. He is the author of the bestselling book 101 Mistakes All Golfers Make (and how to fix them). You can find him on Twitter here - @practicalgolf, where he is happy to chat about golf with anyone.